


he who is not afraid of my darkness

by InaccessibleRail



Series: under my cypresses [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, some unresolved romantic tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:10:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InaccessibleRail/pseuds/InaccessibleRail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I haven’t told him what exactly it is, that I know of our shared past. I don't want to give him false hope. Yet I keep him in this state of suspension. I don't let him go and I don't give into him. (So what is false hope if not another sugar-laced cruelty?) I feel my mouth pull into a wry half-smile. It might be a sneer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he who is not afraid of my darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for  
> \+ dissociative thoughts/blackouts  
> \+ nightmares

I come to and I’m crouching over him. His voice is not quite reaching me but I feel his hands stroke my forearms (- one of them. I only feel the one.) My chest is heaving and my ears are ringing, I’m crouching over him as though we’re under fire.

Maybe that was my dream. I don’t know exactly.

I hope so.

We’re alright, he’s saying, staring into my eyes. He’s alive under me. His eyes are bright. He’s telling me we’re alright, soft and urgent all the same. I hang my head and take a deep breath, roll off him. I fall back against the bed and try to calm down; panic and fear surges inside me like a wave that keeps rolling, keeps rising because I-

I don’t remember killing without anything but intent but I know it could happen. I think it has happened. I’m marking my progress as best as I can, slowly, regaining my focus by increments like adjusting a scope that resists. I’m regaining my control, but when I slip up, I slip up badly.

I realize he’s breathing hard too.

I frightened him.

The sweat on my back has cooled once I feel able to speak:

I’m sorry.

It’s okay, he says and turns to watch me. He doesn’t sound shook-up as he says it, but tired. More than by way of sleep deprivation. We lie in silence for a long time, the room turns a grayish blue with the encroaching dawn. I stare at the ceiling but I can tell he’s awake and looking at me.

I think about his worried eyes following my every move in dark woods overseas. I try to think of whatever testy thing I told him then to have him cut it out, but in actuality, have him reassured I was okay—but the words are lost among trees and trees. They won’t form, and neither will any substitute.

I want to tell him I’m okay, but I don’t. Not sure it’s something I would say.

I stay silent until he gets up.

  
 

The room is warm and sunlit when I wake up next. His entrance at the front door woke me as is usually my intention. I leave the bedroom door slightly ajar, I lie down facing it. I listen as I doze. Vigilance is markedly easier when sleeping on the couch in the living room. I like this bed because I like how it smells. It releases something in my brain - that pained pleasure - though it dulls with repetition.

I only sleep in snatches, mostly when he’s out. I trust my unconscious self the least, and anyway, I don’t like having to shift my center of attention. At least I’m making time pass quicker until he’s back.

But he’s not alone now. There’s someone with him.

He takes a seat at the kitchen table. She doesn’t.

Is he here?

No.

He’s a terrible liar. I hear footsteps coming closer but before I’ve risen to a defensive stance they've paused at the sound of his voice. It’s the redhead. She’s here to collect me.

Don’t- he starts. He’s sleeping, he says. He barely ever does.

I keep silent, feign sleep. She’s motionless: hesitating, but relents after letting only a few seconds go stale. She goes back into the kitchen. I exhale.

Instincts that only register dully now tell me I should make myself scarce—but I want to hear. And I've given up on instincts in any case. I'm me now, that name he calls me by. I'm not what I was made to be. (As a rule, I do well to disregard my instincts. At least those discernable to him.) I don’t know that I’d refuse him directly if he asked me to go with her. I don’t think I’d refuse my instincts to run either.

You should let me take him in.

She sounds softened, and I wonder if she’s put a hand on his shoulder. The idea has me itching to check.

I promised him.

You honestly think he’s not just using you?

I’m alright with him using me.

I feel myself frown. He’s got it wrong. Or maybe only half-right. I’m letting him use me. Isn’t that what this is? I want him to need me.

Maybe I’m using him too, he says so quietly I almost don’t hear. I can’t tell if the statement falls in line with my operative. I can’t tell why it makes me unhappy. Maybe it’s simply because he sounds so unhappy admitting it.

  


He’s at the kitchen table, chair pulled back. I heard it scrape against the floor when he rose to follow the redhead to the door this morning, I heard him turn the lock behind her. My hands don’t shake when I reach for him but I think his would. Touching him, in caresses, feels like violence; as easy to my hands, as intricate in their maneuvers. I know the right places. I was afraid I wouldn't, but I do. His head is bowed and I comb my fingers through his hair. He seems to be constantly battling an urge to shy away and another to lean in: fearing what will happen in either scenario. Maybe it’s the metal.

He stays still.

My fingertips are at the back of his neck; I stay still too.

I haven’t told him what exactly it is, that I know of our shared past. I don't want to give him false hope. Yet I keep him in this state of suspension. I don't let him go and I don't give into him. (So what is false hope if not another sugar-laced cruelty?) I feel my mouth pull into a wry half-smile. It might be a sneer.

Now I want to hear him laugh, so I construct something from my bits and pieces that I feel most confident will ring true. Sound like something I would say.

I put effort into making my voice come out warm, like I'm alive. My hands rest around his neck. He stares at my chest.

Might want to pick your dirty socks off the floor, I say, next time you have company over.

It's only the mildest of suggestions.

And maybe-

I side-eye the table stacked with yesterday’s dishes,

                   -put the plates in the sink. At the very least. 

Those are your socks, he counters, but the corners of his mouth turn upward.

So is the t-shirt on the bathroom floor, so are the sweats on the couch. But technically, all my clothes are his.

Still, I say.

  


There’s a new dream I have since coming to him, since sleeping in his bed. It’s why I don’t sleep beside him unless by godawful mistake. My hair is clinging to my neck and the sheets are soaked through, they stick to my skin. I turn my head even though I’m afraid, my chest is seizing up with the fear and my muscles are all stiff, barely relenting, but I turn my head: my head is being turned.

I’m afraid.

I see the long, wet sweeps of blood on the bedroom floor, leading out, into the bathroom. I don’t have to get up and follow them to know.

I know where he is.

I know it was me.

  


It’s gotten to be night again, for some reason. I turn to convey my surprise to him but he’s looking at me like he already knows. We’re on the couch. I blink my eyes that have gone dry, and now I’ve surfaced. I shift from nothingness to him. I realize I’ve been pulled back to where we are. This is the present.

Still, I look at him and my thoughts stray to past glories. His head is leaning on the backrest, his eyes are drooping. Apropos nothing I feel like asking something I’d do well not to.

But I want to know if we were. If we did.

Only,  
   very,  
   nearly,  
 he says in a rueful way that makes me think I know what he means. Fingertips, closed mouths, noses brushing against each other. Held on a bit too tightly, breathed in a bit too heavily. Held his gaze, (held up by a piece of string.) That sort.

It wasn’t really an option, he says and shrugs some, shakes his head some. But he won’t meet my eye.

I want to say that I remember what kissing him is like. That I know, if it’s only the mere fact that it happened.

Instead I say: like this? Instead I move forward.

And our noses are brushing against each other and our closed mouths touch, once.

My fingertips are on his neck. We’re barely making contact at all. My heart is pounding.

Yeah, he breathes out. Like that.

  


I examine all of my bits and pieces from before. I’m able to verbalize my original purpose. I had one, I know that now, before they altered it.

Once I walked away from him with a button missing from my shirt and my shoes untied, thinking I might never speak to him again. I’ve reconstructed the emotions: first, I was angry, and under that, I was despairing. I walked away from his narrow, heaving chest. His clenched fists. I slammed the door. I thought maybe I’ll let it all go. I’ll let us drift apart. I’d do well to shift my center of attention. And he-

Well, he.

There’s no river to pull him from if I slit his throat in the night, if I lose it and break his neck one day. I was made to keep him safe. Did I ever know how?

Here’s one way: he shouldn’t have looked for me and I shouldn’t have come. Reeled in by that piece of string. I don’t know where I am when I’m not with him.

Where am I now?

Where is he?

It’s easy to drift. It would be. I’ve done it before. The current takes you with it, but always to the same place.

Come here, he says.

And I'm there.

**Author's Note:**

> _"To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses."_


End file.
